| | JUNE 20208CIOReviewIN MY OPINIONIn this article, I will share some personal experience that I imagine is common to many readers who have worked in organizations in the private, non-profit, and government sectors. Often, processes are immature and undefined, not performed consistently (or worse, processes are not performed at all), and organizations rely too often and too much on the heroics of individuals to accomplish their goals. This is why the deliberate management of process has evolved into a MANAGING KNOWLEDGE AND MANAGING PROCESSESBy Matthew Morgan, COO, Savills Inc. (North American business unit of Savills plc)discipline that is increasingly necessary for any organization at scale. Readers may be familiar with manifestation of this formal discipline in recognizing terms such as "BPM" (Business Process Management), "Six Sigma" (a methodology to create statistical process control within six standard deviations), or "business architecture" (the practice of modeling an enterprise's structure and the relationships of components to each other).Building and maintaining business capability (i.e., the ability of a business to deliver its desired outcomes) is the essence of operations management. A business capability is the result of the interactions of people, processes, and technologies to deliver desired business outcomes. This article emerged after reflecting on the first step to build business capability across many different organizations in many different industries at many different maturity levels. I have come to appreciate that knowledge management is that first step. If there are no clearly documented policies in an organization to guide behaviors and decision-making, the people (the first element of a business capability) will not be aligned or have a shared understanding of goals and expectations. There will be frequent and needless expenditures of effort to debate boundaries of actions and the reasoning behind them. If there are no documented procedures, departure or absence of key people will be relatively more costly, as their precious knowledge is not available to the organization. Onboarding is also difficult as new hires will need to go on a "scavenger hunt" to find the information they need to do their jobs. Lack of documented procedures also creates inconsistency and inefficiency in an organization's processes (the second element of a business capability). Without common reference points, people in different parts of the organization will invent or reinvent processes or do their best to look to past practice, which may often not be the most efficient or effective way to execute a process. Even for those organizations where procedures are documented, poor knowledge management can result in procedures being inaccurate, in that they either do not describe the desired process or become outdated and therefore do not describe the current state of practice; confusing, in that they are poorly written or hard to follow; or inaccessible, in that they are hard to find. Ensuring procedures are easy to understand, accurate and up-to-date, and accompanied by appropriate training are additional components of effective knowledge management.Matthew Morgan
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